Why I need you and you need me.

A little over 10 years ago I did something that would change the course of my life forever. I went to New York and stood in line for over an hour at the Magnolia Bakery. After a bite of a freshly baked sugary cupcake, I knew I was obsessed. A seedling of a dream was planted in me that I couldn’t shake.

If you’ve ever been to NYC you’ll know that it is intense, majestic and arguably one of the most extraordinary cities on this Earth. Heading back to this magnificent city last week made me realise why it can spark so much inspiration and ignite dreams you never thought you’ve had.

As Maeva and I landed in NYC last Monday and after a few hours sleep, we rocked up to our first meeting at 9AM. Over the course of 4 days we met with investors, female entrepreneurs and people wanting to genuinely help us succeed. Walking through the hustling city, I felt this wave of certainty that this dream I was building was going to happen, it was only a matter of time.

Starting a business is a struggle. Regardless of how it looks from outset and social media of the successful entrepreneurs that have made it to the peak of the mountain without breaking a sweat, behind it is a EFF-LOAD of uncertainty, self doubt and at times, great despair. But what the hell makes us continue to put ourselves through that pain? The torture of driving ourselves insane?

It’s the notion that we believe that we were meant for something more.

In true New York City style, our first meet up and launch into the United States was manically and gloriously eventful. Through a few mentions on Instagram about our first meet up in NY and through word-of-mouth, we ended up with a room full of women at the venue. Our guest speaker was Melbournian female entrepreneur, Alex Kate Knight, whom in her hearty Aussie accent was set to inspire us all with her stories. We only had one issue. Someone had decided to throw a party at the same venue, with no booking and had high jacked our reserved area. It was loud, too loud for us to hear anything.

In true entrepreneur-mode, a couple of women decided to take control of the situation and scout the area for another venue. At this stage I was a bit of a mess freaking out that there could not be anything worse than what was happening, it was a disorganised mess. Christina (my amazing pitch coach) and Caz came back and announced that they had gone across the street and found an Irish pub that was relatively empty and in about ten minutes could set up a mic and speaker for us. Our mission was set. We rounded up 60 women, picked up all our Bluestone Lane juices and Flint rollers, and marched across the street. We had taken over this Irish pub that had a neon sign of a pink pig that said “Best BBQ”. A couple of magnums of sparkling in plastic disposable champagne flutes later, we were all set and raring to go.

This was the true essence of what The League is about. Regardless of whether we were in a classy venue or not, it did not matter. What mattered was our “lets do this” attitude and comradery we felt, even though it was the first time we had ever met each other. It was very clear in this moment that this kinship amongst women like us exists on every corner of the globe. It’s universal.

Dreams are important because it is our calling but often we are afraid to follow them because we look at those who have achieved success and they seem so far way from where we are right now. We struggle with getting up some days to muster the motivation, the passion to keep going. We battle with our self doubt, the knock backs and uncertainty of it all. But deep down we know that we have to keep going, the struggle will be worth it. Keep keeping and fighting to protect our dream and fire lit.

We don’t want to be mediocre, corporate, basic. We are complicated, we are visionaries and we want to be able to make a mark in this world with our precious life. And yet… we struggle. We’ll struggle to the point we think we’re insane. This thing they call entrepreneurship isn’t as enticing anymore. We just want to switch off at 5pm but we can’t. We just want to curl up in bed alone and cry our worries away. This idea of success, how can we possibly get there? How can we possibly muster the strength to be like those that have reached the top? And yet, those extraordinary people still got there.

I promise you, those extraordinary women had support along the way. They had people who believed in them and showed them that they were the only person in this world to bring their unique potential in the world. All of the things that they manifested and created came as a result of those who believed in them and gave them what they needed to keep going.

This is the type of motivation and support that I needed in my first year of business and this is why The League exists.

I hope you’ll read this and know that you’re not alone, we are all struggling to keep our dream alive. We need each other. I need you and you need me because without each other, the chances of us all reaching success becomes that much farther away. Being part of this community of female entrepreneurs is about finding that person that just gets us. They can see the glimmer in our eyes that we were meant for something more, even if we may not believe it at times. We all have the power to reach the top of the peak but it doesn’t have to be on our power alone. Just maybe when we reach that peak, we’ll look back and realise that we’ve paved a path for the next generation of entrepreneurs, girls that aspire for something more. We’ll show them that it is possible. We’ll realise that the mountain peak wasn’t that far away after all and all we needed was some people with us along the way.

We are a league of extraordinary women because we defied the odds.

Stay Peachy,

Sheryl Thai, CEO

League of Extraordinary Women